With tacit acceptance from some employers and poor coordination among government agencies, this practice provides the backbone of some low-wage businesses and a boon to the Social Security trust fund.

The party tends to represent less-affluent voters who are wary of competition from low-wage businesses in China.

That led to the system of premiums with subsidies to cushion smaller low-wage businesses.

The city, with 300,000 people, is becoming a center of low-wage retail and service businesses that depress the standard of living.

Here as elsewhere, nearly all larger companies offer health insurance but many small and low-wage businesses do not, leaving many workers and their families unprotected from the often startling costs of medical care.

Government: Would subsidize costs for many small and low-wage businesses and for individuals (like part-time workers and the unemployed) who have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line.

Federal aid for small low-wage businesses would offset $11 billion of this cost under Mr. Clinton's proposal.

The proliferation of low-wage businesses, like stores and restaurants, is feeding the gap in benefits.

This practice provides the backbone of some low-wage businesses and a boon to the Social Security trust fund.

White House officials said in interviews afterward that the Administration was leaning toward giving the most generous treatment to low-wage, low-profit businesses with fewer than 50 employees.